


Fire in the Snow

by samidha



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Case Fic, Children, Gen, Pre-Canon, Pre-Series, Psychic Abilities, Psychic Phenomenon, Sam Has Powers, Sam on the Hunt, Weechesters, Young Winchesters, powers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-06-22
Updated: 2008-06-22
Packaged: 2018-12-04 14:03:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,106
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11556717
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/samidha/pseuds/samidha
Summary: Sam and Dean accompany John on a hunt and encounter an adventure of their own.





	Fire in the Snow

Dean leaned the shotgun against the wall of the rented cabin. John Winchester had splurged to keep his boys out of the worst of the icy mountain winds. The truth was they both knew Dean could do fine in a tent, but Sam had somehow managed to grow at least three inches in about a week, and a tiny part of himself that John couldn’t ignore had been afraid his younger son might not hold up in the cold without some more weight on him. Parenting was like that—you just didn’t know, until you did.

Dean would never admit it, but he was immensely grateful for the four walls of the cabin. Even with what little they did to hold the freezing air at bay, it was enough to make Dean keenly aware of what it would be like outside. Out where his dad was. He winced. He wouldn’t say anything, but he couldn’t pretend this was some kind of picnic, either. He did a few squats to keep heat circulating in his veins. Pussy, he berated himself. Stupid pansy-ass. Dad’s out there risking life and limb and you’re in here playing track and field. Got it so hard.

He willed the thoughts to stop—instead running through the usual drill he got from his father, the last words they exchanged every time John left.

“Don’t open the door—“

“Not for anybody, for any reason. I know, Dad.”

“And….”

“Shoot first, ask questions later.”

“And….”

“If anything happens, call Pastor Jim.” Or Bobby. Sometimes it was Bobby. If his dad was worried, then it was both of them. This time it was just Pastor Jim. Dad wasn’t worried. So Dean willed the thoughts away.

“How ya doin’, Sammy?”

Sam let out a cartoonishly-exasperated sigh. “Reading, Dean,” he said. 

At ten, Sam had graduated to reading what he considered serious books at school. Dean knew, because all of a sudden Sam had started talking down to him whenever the subject of books or school came up. Sam Winchester had decided that he was smart, and that his older brother was definitely not. And he wasn’t going to let Dean forget it.

“Right, right. Like I’ve never even read before, Sam. You think I’m that stupid?”

“For fun?”

“Huh?”

“You read for fun?”

“No. So what?”

“So you’d rather spend your time eating yourself sick or making the world’s most aerodynamic spitball. What aspirations.”

“Excuse me. If it wasn’t for you, I’d be out in a tent with Dad right now, fighting evil bastards, you think I just sit around here with you ‘cause I like you so much? You and your whining?”

Sam looked down. “Sorry, Dean. You should be with Dad. You’re good at everything.”

Dean’s expression softened. “It’s warmer in here,” he said, and smiled a little.

“Not that warm.”

“So get in your sleeping bag, beanpole.”

Sam looked up and smiled at his brother. “Okay. Hey, Dean?”

“Yeah?”

“This book’s not even that good anyway.”

Dean grinned. “’Course it isn’t.”

They exchanged a small smile and Sam slipped into his sleeping bag. In a few moments he had laid the book down, pages to the floorboards to keep his place, and he snuggled in on himself. He turned off his flashlight and closed his eyes.

“Night, Dean.”

“Night, brainiac.”

= = =

John watched the white creature advance. The bloodied slash full of needle teeth which passed for its mouth opened. Were the creature human, he would have sworn he’d just seen it smack its lips in anticipation. His stomach turned in revulsion as a thin line of spittle and blood snaked its way to the ground, and froze there, no doubt. The creature emitted a growl and reached an impossibly long arm out for its prey.

It drew back just as fast, before he could sink the iron knife into its flesh. In the moment just before this, John had felt… something. He could swear it was almost a tickle along his scalp, sickening and sweet—and then nothing.

The Yeti dropped to all fours, taking on the gait of a polar bear and moving with impossible speed, and was gone.

John took off after it, in the direction he thought it had gone. Then a blur of white moved in from the side and clawed at his cheek, his scalp, causing a wet impact that sent John flying toward the base of a tree.

The last thing that he saw was a line of his own blood spraying the snow.

= = =

Dean dreamt of snow. The mountainside was blue-white and cold. Everything was so crisp and clear, the world after a storm. He almost didn’t see it at first. Then, when he became aware of it, it was because he felt it. 

The words were barely more than a growl, but he understood them in matter-of-fact human sentences. 

“You are warm. You will give that to me, I need the warmth. You have the best memories—Dean.”

It was when he knew that it knew his name that he made out its shape in the field of white. It wanted him to, he thought, and shivered.

Is Dad hunting this? Is Dad--? Dad!

He tried to pull himself out of the dream, but the white thing with bloody needles for teeth was holding him now, slipping up to him silent as snow and holding him in the dream. Keeping him there.

= = =

Sam was so cold. It should have been impossible to be this cold. If Dad was so concerned that they knew how to call Pastor Jim in an emergency, why didn’t they ever get to just stay with him instead of freezing down to the bone or starving while Dad went off on some hero mission or other? Yeah. Dad, the hero. Couldn’t even make sure his kids stayed warm in the middle of winter in the Rockies. Sam bit his lip. 

Just get warm.

Dean was probably freezing too. He wouldn’t mind if Sam got a little closer, would he? Not if it kept him warmer til morning. Sam inched slowly across the cabin floor toward his brother.

Dean was even colder than he was. The cold was coming off of Dean. Out of him. It felt like—it felt like feeling a ghost, only at least twenty times colder.

“Dean?” Sam knew it was stupid to just call his name like that. Something was wrong. If he could just wake Dean up like it was time for cereal and a walk to school then nothing would be wrong, would it? Panic started to rise like bile in his throat.

Dean started to shiver in his sleep. “No. You can’t—Mom? You can’t take her—“ A tear worked its way out of Dean’s eye and nearly froze on his skin. And then the words hit Sam, delayed.

“Dean!” He put an arm out to shake Dean awake. But instead of Dean coming to wakefulness and to Sam, it was Sam who went to Dean in one brilliant flash.

Snow. Everywhere. It formed unbroken walls around them. Dean, the monster on the mountain, and now Sam.

“Sammy! No!”

“Dean! How did we—?“

_“Now it is as I hoped. Two souls. So many memories, so much warmth—“_ The Yeti pulled back with the same arm—

\--and Dean screamed. It was half snarl, half cry. Beads of bloody sweat stood out on his forehead. “You won’t take her, you bastard!”

Sam ran for the Yeti, heat pumping through him fueled by rage. He strode through the snow and ice with purpose and unexpected grace, his stride long and fast with his new height. The Yeti, intent on Dean, was barreled into from the side and it and Sam went tumbling head over feet, claws and fists flying.

There was no way for Sam to expect to keep the upper hand in a physical match—but that wasn’t the point. The point was to stop Dean’s pain. Buy some time. Dad and Dean were always comparing hunting strategies for dire circumstances, and keeping time on their side was key.

They thought that Sam had so little interest in hunting it was laughable. But the truth was that when they didn’t find him doing or planning or practicing things, he was listening. He was getting ready.

Sam rolled away from the Yeti, bloodied and beaten, and knew that in the next second the damn thing would have him and Sam didn’t know how much fight he’d have left then. But at least he had sideswiped the thing. At least he had gotten it away from Dean.

_Run, Dean!_

The impossibly long arms of the Yeti reached out and took Sam by either side of the head, claws sinking into his hair and scalp. Sam felt an impossible pull from the middle of his head, up through the top of his skull and out his forehead.

“Now I take what is mine.”

Dean. Two Christmases ago. Stealing a tiny tree and all the Barbie toys from down the block in a desperate attempt to make things normal. 

Dean, buying Sam a candy bar with the last of their cash and going without any supper. 

Dean, cooking lumpy, sticky pasta noodles and actually blushing, apologizing and not wanting to look at Sam. 

Dean, telling Sam they had the coolest dad in the world because he saved people from things they didn’t even know to be afraid of, and that made him better than the police.

Dean. His brother, Dean.

“YOU’RE NOT GOING TO TAKE MY BROTHER!” 

An intangible wall went up and the pulling stopped. The pain and the loss ebbed. Enough warmth flooded back into Sam to get him moving again and he ran and grabbed hold of a stunned Dean and ran, and ran, and ran. Then, where the wall had gone up, a column of flames rose. The Yeti stood to one side of it, confused and shocked, until the flames moved to engulf it and it let out a piercing scream, like a howl meeting a wail multiplied a thousand-fold. Then, almost as quickly as the flames had appeared, there was only a pile of ash.

= = =

“Jesus! Boys!” A bloody and battered John Winchester knelt over the two boys, cuddled close together in their separate sleeping bags and cold as death. 

Sam woke first. Almost calm. If John had known what to look for, he might have been unsettled. Relief got the better of him in any case. “It was a Yeti, Dad,” Sam said quietly.

“I know, son,” John said. And then— “How did you—?” 

“I heard you tell Dean,” Sam said simply.

John Winchester’s eyebrows raised. “You did, huh. Well—“

“Dean’s gonna be really cold, we gotta get the stove going again, Dad, but I… we burned it. We… blocked it and burned it.”

“Okay. But as soon as he’s warm… as soon as you’re both warm—we’re getting out of here. I’ll call Ellen, tell her the legwork’s done, but I’m not finishing off that damn thing.”

“I think we got it, Dad. Who’s Ellen?”

“Friend of Bobby’s,” John said quickly. Calling Ellen. It had come to this. A hunt John Winchester had to give to the masses—a defeat. But he had his boys. “Let’s get your brother up now.”

“Dean… you okay?” Sam called. He willed some of his heat into his brother.

It worked, just enough to elicit a croak of a reply from Dean. “Hey, brainiac, nice moves in there.”

Sam grinned. He reached down and squeezed Dean’s freezing hand. He was awake, and back with them. For once, Sam Winchester could say he’d had his brother’s back. He felt a rush of relief and elation. In that moment, he was high on life. This had to be something like what Dean and his Dad felt when they hunted. If it was, this was a feeling Sam could get used to. He smiled.

John caught the look on his youngest son’s face and his lips turned upward in one of his fleeting smiles. “You did good, son,” he said gruffly to Sam.

Sam blinked. “Thank you, sir,” he said. 

Those words marked the first time Sam could remember knowing John Winchester—his father—was directly praising him. The words went through him like electricity, so unexpected and new that Sam didn’t know what to do, didn’t feel anything at first. He found himself searching out Dean’s gaze with his own and slowly registered the look on his older brother’s face. 

Dean was grinning like he’d never been prouder in his life. And that was all Sam needed to see.


End file.
